“I would like to say a special word to women who have had an abortion. The Church is aware of the many factors which may have influenced your decision, and she does not doubt that in many cases it was a painful and even shattering decision. The wound in your heart may not yet have healed. Certainly what happened was and remains terribly wrong. But do not give in to discouragement and do not lose hope. Try rather to understand what happened and face it honestly.”

“If you have not already done so, give yourselves over with humility and trust to repentance. The Father of mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. You will come to understand that nothing is definitely lost and you will also be able to ask forgiveness from your child, who is now living in the Lord.”

“With the friendly and expert help and advice of other people, and as a result of your own painful experience, you can be among the most eloquent defenders of everyone’s right to life. Through your commitment to life, whether by accepting the birth of other children or by welcoming and caring for those most in need of someone to be close to them, you will become promoters of a new way of looking at human life.”

~Pope John Paul II

I’ve included a side-bar panel titled Healing Post-Abortion for post-abortive women and men, or those who know them. There are wonderful ministries linked to there.

Thanks for posting this. That is something everyone should read. That paragraph is handed out to each participant in the Rachel’s Vineyard Retreat for healing after abortion and the entire retreat is very much based on this.

Readers can find out more about Rachel’s Vineyard at http://www.rachelsvineyard.org Although the intial retreats were Catholic, there is now both a Catholic retreat manual and an interdenominational retreat manual, and retreats are conducted by both Catholic and Protestant retreat teams on every continent, with a total of about 600 retreats per year and growing.

The retreats are very much the suffering Body of Christ ministering to each other… women who have had abortions are part of each team, but on Catholic teams there is always a priest for sacraments, and they are always wonderfully compassionate. Protestants teams have clergy of the sponsoring denomination.

P.S. I do see, you have the link to Rachel’s Vineyard in the sidebar on post-abortion healing. Would you consider also posting a link to my book, The Four Steps to Healing by Martha Shuping, M.D., and Debbie McDaniel, MA, LPC.

My experience is that many women are too fearful to take the step of attending a weekend a weekend retreat. I love the Rachel’s Vineyard, and have been a facilitator for more than 10 years, and have trained many retreat teams. I know this is a good program and women are helped, but I also know that there are many other women who are just too afraid to take that step.

That is the very reason I wrote The Four Steps to Healing. It presents four issues that women typically need to address one way or another in order to fully heal from their abortion. So, anyone can pick up the book and begin to deal with these issues on their own, even though later they may choose to participate in a program such as Rachel’s Vineyard. This is a start.

The webpage http://www.postabortionhealing.net was designed to help people learn about the book–there is no judging, and nothing political, it’s purely and entirely devoted to giving information on the book including sample pages, to help women heal. There is a Catholic edition and a non-denominational edition.

It’s a small paperback, and there is nothing about abortion on the cover… just “The Four Steps to Healing.” tapmsit’TheWe pr